Joe Higgins (Dublin West, Socialist Party) | Oireachtas source

The First World War was a crime of appalling proportions which inflicted hell on earth by the ruling classes of both Germany and Britain in pursuit of greater access to markets and greed for each other's colonies. Millions of victims were working class youth in uniform and others. I put it to the Taoiseach that it is not appropriate that he should participate uncritically with modern day representatives of the British ruling class in ceremonies supposedly commemorating the innocent victims, when those people have never acknowledged the extent of the crime for which they and the German ruling class were responsible.

One of the Taoiseach's party information bulletins states that Fine Gael embraced other traditions as it developed in Ireland, including the Irish Parliamentary Party of Redmond. In 2014, the year commemorating the 100th anniversary of the launch of the nightmare of the First World War, has the Taoiseach any plans to apologise for the baleful crime of the Irish Parliamentary Party and its leadership in whipping up support for the World War atrocities and being responsible for tens of thousands of youth from this country participating and dying in the process?

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